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Experts Issue New Heart Disease Guidelines for Women
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 The current issue of Circulation also included heart information from several other studies:
- Age, rather than health care disparities, seems to explain why more women than men die in the hospital after a heart attack. "The differences in death rates are largely due to differences in age when the heart attack occurred and not due to differences in treatment," said Dr. Alice Jacobs, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, who was also involved with the new guidelines.
- Differences in an estrogen gene (ESR1) do not appear to affect the risk of heart attack and stroke in response to hormone replacement therapy, as was previously thought. The gene may, however, be associated with an elevated risk of breast cancer.
- Some 40 percent of postmenopausal women have "pre-hypertension," associated with a 58 percent higher risk of cardiovascular death, said researchers from the Women's Health Initiative. It's unclear if intervening in this group will reduce cardiovascular problems, Jacobs said.
- Supplementation with calcium/vitamin D had no effect on heart disease and stroke risk in postmenopausal women who were generally healthy.
- Estrogen, when delivered by patch or gel, does not seem to increase the risk of blood clots in the vein (venous thromboembolism or VTE). Only estrogen taken orally seems to increase this risk.
More information
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There's more on women and heart disease at the American Heart Association.
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Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 2/19/2007
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SOURCES: Feb. 15, 2007, teleconference with Lori Mosca, M.D., Ph.D., director of preventive cardiology, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and Alice Jacobs, professor of medicine, Boston University School of Medicine; Circulation
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